Opulent and Effective

Puccini's 'Turandot' in Arizona,enjoyed by MARIA NOCKIN

Venetian explorer Marco Polo (1254-1324) returned home to Venice with stories from China. One of them concerned the unwed Mongolian Princess Khutulun who amassed a fortune by asking each of her prospective suitors to wager numerous horses on the outcome of a wrestling match with her. Eventually, she collected thousands of horses but she never married. In 1722, French scholar and interpreter Francois Pétis de la Croix published a book of stories called Hezar o-yek shab, translated as Les Mille et un Jours ('One Thousand and One Days'), which contained his version of the Khutulun story. He called the princess Turandot, or Daughter of Central Asia and wrote that she asked her suitors to solve riddles...